


kill what you can't save

by badbrains



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Nogitsune, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, leave me alone, surprise surprise i wrote preslash again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29415510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badbrains/pseuds/badbrains
Summary: He doesn’t feel like a monster, is the thing. He feels like a corpse, wrung out and used and cold. He doesn’t feel like some nightmarish, towering, scary thing. He just feels like himself, like Stiles Stilinski, which was more than enough, last time.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29





	kill what you can't save

**Author's Note:**

> hi it's me again. i could not get this idea out of my head and now it is here so yea. 
> 
> can you guys tell that i have been watching season 3b. is it obvious yet. i love post-nogitsune fics and i would like to see more where stiles noticeably struggles with distinguishing what is real and what isn’t. cause i’m a glutton for punishment, bay bee. 
> 
> i know what you are all thinking: pre-slash AGAIN??? to which i say jkdhjhajghghsaf LEAVE ME ALONE. i have found that writing little baby pre-slash fics rather than huge aus brings me joy. or some version of positivity. even though all i write is angst. this is MY coping mechanism, so just let me purge it from my system LMAO 
> 
> shout out to raw for talking with me about this and helping me with it today, i appreciate you dude (insert standing man emoji)
> 
> no beta + pls don't hate me for the ending. title is yet again inspired by one of margaret atwood's works. i probably owe her money at this point. it comes from her poem _november_ in her book _you are happy_ which i have included in the end notes so you can all suffer (:

Stiles has only ever seen possession in movies. 

He and Scott used to build blanket forts, these structurally unsound things that always collapsed, no matter how elaborately planned. They watched _The Exorcist_ huddled together, their breath hitching, each of them covering their eyes when she sprayed green from her mouth. Stiles didn’t sleep for two days, but it was that exciting, hard-edged exhaustion. The kind you can only get when you are a kid, when you can wear it as a trophy, a symbol of rebellion. His burning eyes signified - _I did something I should not have done._ Both he and Scott went to school, nearly delirious with it. 

Now, he stares at his wall while he lies curled in his bed, trying to ignore the shadows that slide across it. Kaleidoscopic figures that shift and morph, a darkness that begs him to look at it, to give it a body to inhabit, if only for a moment. But, he can’t close his eyes, can’t drown it out, because the darkness is in him, too. He shuts his eyes and the shadows are still there, dancing along the backs of his eyelids. 

The tree outside of his window has been there since he was a kid. There’s a branch near the top, one that looks grotesque and ill-shaped when winter takes its leaves. It always seemed to tap the pane on nights when he was afraid. A rough, rhythmic scraping that he was certain was a monster, or a demon, or - with his dad’s constant iterations of Stranger Danger - a kidnapper arriving to steal him away. 

Tonight, it sounds like a melody. The only thing convincing him that he is here, in the same bedroom he has always had, in the same house he has always lived, in the same town he has always been in. The branch sends a shrill sound along his window and it sounds like reality, it sounds like the darkness getting just a little bit less dark. He can close his eyes and focus on it, but he doesn’t sleep. He just lies there until the tree goes silent as the night wind dissipates. When it gets quiet, he rises, his body seeking something else to remind him he is awake. 

When he showers, he stares dead ahead at the tiles surrounding him. It has been a while since he could face himself, could look at his body and call it his own, when he did not liken himself to a vehicle for destruction, as cliché and pathetic as it sounds. The only time he looks, it is for his hands, to take inventory of his fingers. This morning, there are ten. There are ten and he is here and everything still fucking hurts. 

More often than he would like to admit, he thinks about drinking. He knows where his dad keeps his liquor. Stiles thinks about it a lot. It seemed to make the man feel better after his mom. Eases the burning pain of death. Stiles dreams of being afforded such a luxury. 

He is a killer. He is glad he never took the Bite, refused Peter in the parking garage, even though, deep down in his soul, he ached for the sense of belonging that accompanied lycanthropy in this town. He is glad he didn’t take it, because if his eyes were blue, he isn’t sure he would be able to live with it. The only visual representation of his status is the tremor in his hands, the slump in his posture, the sting behind his eyes begging him to sleep. He can deal with those, wave them off, ignore them. And yet, the darkness stays, and he still shakes and his shoulders still sag and he is still so goddamn tired. 

He hates how the pack looks at him. The same way he had looked at his dad, after. Regarding the man like a villain, like someone who took something from him. Waiting for him to disappear, too. He hates having blood on his hands, forced to keep living, forced to hold onto the knowledge that it _should have been him_. 

Most of all, though, he hates how Derek treats him. Like he understands, or something. There is none of that careful pity, cautious regard. He acts as though Stiles is still Stiles, even though he isn’t. Never fucking will be. Then again, Derek probably does not have any qualms about an Argent girl dying. Which makes Stiles feel worse instead of better. 

He can tell that everyone is relieved that he is unable to handle it. They like that he cannot sleep without screaming, that he cannot walk without staggering, that he cannot speak without the words cracking. They like that he is fraying apart, because that means it’s him. They have nothing to worry about as long as he is fucked up. He guesses they have been liking him a lot, lately. 

One thing about the Nogitsune is, it took things that Stiles was certain were not real - meaningless feelings and fantasies that he, logically, knew were rooted in a dream state - and it weaponized them. Where he had questioned if any of his friends liked him, now he finds himself hanging on to their every word, analyzing their tones, creating monuments in his mind of every time he has ever fucked up. Said the wrong thing. Did the wrong thing. Where he has idly wondered if his dad ever resented him, ever saw so much of Claudia that he could no longer find Stiles, ever hated that he was here instead of her, he now undoubtedly accepts that it is real. Can no longer look the man in the eye. Can no longer allow his gaze to wander along the framed photos adorning the walls that encase the stairs. Where he was sure, so utterly convinced, that there was some inescapable pull connecting him to Derek, he is now certain that no such thing had ever existed at all. 

Love is something that was ruined for Derek, Stiles thinks. Something that he had to bury with the rest of the Hales, a declaration written in ash: _love gets you killed_. And if it doesn’t kill you, it leaves you reeling, wishing you were dead. Stiles is under no fantastical impression that he can - he _could_ \- fix Derek. Or something. He used to have this fantasy, of sorts. Like he would be the liquid gold and Derek would be the pottery and he and Stiles would make this - this destructive testament to Kintsugi, and everyone would be okay. But Derek is broken. And so is Stiles. And everywhere he was gold is now black. 

There were these fantasies. Set to the backdrop of a future where Derek got a grasp on being Alpha, where they were all happy. A place where Erica and Boyd still bickered with each other, where Isaac smiled and Scott was content with just being a part of something. And Stiles could kiss Derek, on the mouth, and they would sleep in the same bed and share the same respect and hold this town together. But, love is something that has now been ruined for Stiles, too. He has finally seen things from Derek’s side of the fence, has been knighted with a firsthand account of how loving people becomes deadly. 

With the way he is now, he would ruin it for Derek. Again. Being in love. And he is tired of destroying things. 

One constant, throughout all of this, has been Derek’s affinity for climbing through windows. 

Stiles is criss cross on his bed, curled forward to stare down at where his palms are splayed over his lap. Ten fingers. He has been studying them for a while, though. Just to be sure. Derek always seems to know when he gets like this. Maybe it is a pack thing. Stiles hasn’t asked, he is too scared to know the answer. Doesn’t want to find out that his misery is transcendent. 

He heaves a shuddering sigh and Derek makes the mattress dip down near Stiles’ feet. He doesn’t say anything. He is embarrassed. Humiliated to still be like this, even months later. Derek remains silent as well. Stiles resists the urge to glance at the wall, where he can see shapes in his peripheral. He hears Derek’s breath catch on an inhale and he extends his fingers, just to make sure. Ten. 

Stiles is filled, then, with this unavoidable anger. This type of rage always manages to consume him around Derek. Around the pack. But, he isn’t angry at them. Not really. Projection is all he’s got left, these days. 

“I hate that you guys all feel sorry for me,” he bites. Still looking at the spread of his fingers. Ten. 

Derek makes a noise at that. Some sound of frustrated protest. “I don’t feel sorry for you, Stiles.”

He laughs, bitter and mean. “Oh, really? You could have fooled me.”

Reluctantly, he raises his eyes to find Derek already looking at him, mouth downturned, eyes hard. “Yes, really. I don’t feel sorry for you.” Derek clenches his hands into fists and Stiles’ gaze jumps to them involuntarily. He has been sentenced to a life of counting. “I do not feel sorry for you, because if I did, then I would have to feel sorry for myself. I’d have to feel sorry for Erica, for Boyd. I would have to feel sorry for Isaac, Scott, for the fact that all of us are gripping at scraps. I don’t have time for that.” 

Stiles knows that his lips are twisted unhappily. Because that is not what he wanted to hear. But, Derek’s always had a knack for saying the shit Stiles is too afraid to confess. Derek breathes a sigh. “You don’t have time for it either, Stiles. Being so sorry. It will kill you.”

He smiles at that, a ghost of the expression. He digs his fingernails into his legs through his flannel pajama pants. Eight. But he can feel his thumbs laid flat across his thighs. Ten. “I am already dead.”

“I wish you would stop saying shit like that,” Derek tells him, quiet. He says it with a tone of resignation, like he has already accepted that Stiles feels this way, knows there is nothing he can do about it. 

“I know.”

They sit in silence because they understand there is nothing to be said. Sometimes Stiles just needs someone else there, and sometimes Derek needs to feel like he is helping instead of harming. A cancerous sort of symbiosis. 

“You aren’t a monster.”

Stiles would like to laugh at that. To cage such a sentiment and poke at it through the bars for his own enjoyment. Because they’re all monsters, in some way or another. At least, they’re all killers. Justified or not. 

He doesn’t feel like a monster, is the thing. He feels like a corpse, wrung out and used and cold. He doesn’t feel like some nightmarish, towering, scary thing. He just feels like himself, like Stiles Stilinski, which was more than enough, last time. 

For a moment, he gives in to the selfish urge to imagine. Imagines Derek pushing him into the mattress, placing open mouthed declarations along his throat. He imagines Derek pulling Stiles to his chest and just holding him. Holding him in a way he hasn’t been held since he was eight and this house still homed three people. Sometimes, he just likes thinking of Derek. Thinking of himself, existing in the period of _before_. 

He knows what he is supposed to say in response. He is supposed to say _I know,_ and _thank you_ , and _maybe I am a monster_ , just so Derek can be the Alpha and reassure him. He says none of those things. Settles on, “Neither are you.”

If Derek notices the jump in his heartbeat, he doesn’t say anything. Likely because his had done the same thing. Stiles doesn’t have to be a werewolf to hear it. 

The shadows are all around him, shouting even though it is quiet. Stiles will not look at them. Does not look at them. Yet he can still see them. They never go away. He is so tired. 

Derek says, “You need to sleep.”

Stiles doesn’t dignify that with a response, chooses instead to let Derek think he is being helpful. 

Eventually, the other man sighs. “The way you feel. It is alright. No one thinks of you the way you think we do, but it is okay that you think that.” Quieter, “I used to think that, too.”

There it is again. That connection. The one between them that Stiles is so sick of having. So sick of having to talk himself out of feeling. It’s not happening, not really. Yet he still has all of his fingers. 

“Sometimes I don’t even feel real,” he admits. It is likely that Derek already knows. But, Stiles thinks saying it out loud will make him feel better. It doesn’t. 

Derek doesn’t reply and Stiles turns to look out the window. He can’t see anything under the blanket of nighttime. He looks instead at the book on his desk. The title is a meaningless amalgamation of letters. He blinks hard. The letters have shifted, yet they’re still unintelligible. He sucks in a shaky breath.

When he looks back to Derek, he is gone. The bedspread flat, unrumpled. Stiles purses his lips and fights the urge to scream. Looks down at his hands, where one of them now has seven fingers. God fucking damn it. 

He twists to face the wall, trying not to vibrate out of his skin. He still ignores the darkness, ignores the shadows begging for a chance to be let in. He lies there and quivers and keeps his eyes glued to where the tag on his pillowcase is swaying under the ceiling fan. He waits and waits and waits. He doesn’t relax until he can hear the tree. 

**Author's Note:**

>  _Kill what you can't save  
>  what you can't eat throw out  
> what you can't throw out bury_  
> 
> 
> _What you can't bury give away  
>  what you can't give away you must carry with you,  
> it is always heavier than you thought._
> 
> yell at me on [tumblr](https://iminsatiable.tumblr.com/)


End file.
